Mask of The Last Enemy
by inexile
Summary: The Last Enemy/Castlevania cross over with a nod to Lords of Shadow's famous Portal reference


Mask of the Last Enemy

The hit had gone off flawlessly, as usual. Until, in an annoyingly bright flash of light, a lovely brunette woman wearing an entirely incongruous form fitting cream silk gown fell out of the wall in a swirl of orange and blue. To complete the picture of improbability, she was firmly clutching some sort of antique pantomime mask. The woman looked at him in confusion, then her gaze shifted to the two bodies cooling in their twin pools of blood and she froze, hand pressed to her heart, pale flesh on pale silk. Overwhelmed, she crumpled at his feet with a faint sigh, like a crushed flower. As she fell the heavy golden discs on her belt clanked on the floor, the metallic noise echoing in the empty lab.

David stood staring down at the barefoot beauty, completely bewildered by this unexpected turn of events. Where did she come from? Why is she dressed like a William Morris painting? Most importantly, what the hell was he going to do with her? The "clean up" crew would arrive in a few minutes, and, if he left her lying unconscious on the floor, they would clean her up, too. Thinking quickly, he rolled her over and zip tied her wrists. Cursing his peculiarly bad luck, he heaved her limp form up in a fireman's carry and exited using the service elevator. Out back, he crammed the duct tape covered motorcycle helmet over her flowing locks, and slid her into the back of his blue van. Almost as an afterthought, he tossed the ancient mask in after her. Then he peeled away, smoking rubber. Leaving behind the two bodies he'd been sent to produce, with one confused mathematician. And, unnoticed at the base of the wall, a strange cube with faintly glowing pink hearts on each side.

Marie awoke to the smell of ozone, like the high Mountains of the Crow Witch after a thunderstorm. She was lying on a mattress on the floor of what appeared to be a storage closet. A tattered red and black lace scarf had been draped across some of the shelves, giving the space a forlorn feminine touch. Some post cards and pictures were stuck to the wall. "I wonder what world I am in now" she thought wearily. At least that dreadful voice was no longer telling her to "assume the party escort position". She had thought she was going to heaven, but the place she had ended up in had been anywhere but.

David, in the next room hunched over his computer keyboards, had no idea what to do with the woman. Well, in fact, he'd had several ideas earlier, as he got her unconscious form out of that archaic dress to see if she was injured. But she was young enough to be his daughter. His step-daughter, he mentally corrected, trying to make sure he kept his cover story straight. He'd done some questionable things in his life, but taking advantage of unconscious young women, however beautiful, was not one of them. He was just doing his job. Or trying to, he thought irritably, as he miskeyed a command for the fifth time.

A noise behind him made him look around sharply. There she stood in the doorway, still a vision of loveliness, even wearing nothing but one of his old t shirts. He swallowed audibly, as he pushed his chair back and stood up, turning to face her. After staring for a few moments he finally blurted out "Please tell me you're not a microbiologist" then stood waiting anxiously for her reply. "What is this 'microbiologist' you speak of, I am the Lady of a Knight of the Brotherhood of Light" Marie responded haughtily. "Oh, so you're barking mad, then" Russell declared with a good deal of relief. "Explains the dress, does it?"

Marie gazed at him steadily, as though she were searching his face for some faint resemblance. He kept speaking."Do you need to see a doctor, perhaps, I have to kidnap...I mean, have one round, soon?" he added helpfully. One look at her face was enough to see that nothing he was saying was making the least impression on her. "You sound like him" she wailed...and fell into his arms. His leather jacket and gloves creaking as he moved, he patted her on the back gently as she sobbed. "Would ya like a cup of tea or somethin' " he finally ventured weakly, as bits of himself he did not really recall having started to melt. It was a terribly uncomfortable feeling, but one he did not want to stop, he found himself thinking in some confusion. Then she kissed him. He could feel the heat of her body even through the leather jacket.

As he lay there with her afterwords he tried to explain, to justify, himself. "You don't understand... People go about their daily lives, never knowing the forces that can change their destinies forever. I am one of those forces. I never planned to be. I just wanted to be good at my job. But it happened, I stopped being a person and just became the job. Its a lot like being demonically possessed ah' tend to think", he ended philosophically.

"You must've started out believing in something", she insisted, propped up on one elbow gazing down at his face, those eyes burning into his soul. Or, at least, the space where his soul used to be. Before the raid on what turned out to be a school in Kandahar, or that minister and his family in Venezuela. The minister who accidentally witnessed a CIA drug deal, but had not even bothered to beg for his life when they "took a walk together". He had prayed for David's salvation instead. The little things in the job, that slowly but surely turn you into a monster. Who had he been before, he wondered?

"I just wanted to fight for the truth" he finally said simply. Marie reached down beside the bed and picked up the mask. Holding it out to him she said "put this on, then". "You're completely daft, woman" he smiled...and, to humor her, he put it on.

From inside the mask came a very small voice "wha' tha fuck..."

Leaving his electrified cage, he simply closed the gate and walked away. He'd always meant to blow this place up when he left. Not the he had anything against Battersea Power Station, he just liked covering his tracks. But now he could blow everything else up instead.

It was easy enough to do once you knew the trick of it. He broke into a nondescript abandoned house in East Anglia and, at the exact right time of day simply screwed in a light bulb. That was all that was required to accomplish the mission. The light bulb flickered on, triggering a cascade effect which caused a massive power outage throughout the whole of the UK. In the midst of the outage the switch to back up power was botched, and both TIA and TIA's back up servers were fried to a crisp, all data gone beyond recall. The current government was toppled by social unrest in the aftermath of the administration's completely ineffective disaster response. Several people killed themselves, and several others vanished mysteriously. Including a fair number of the people who had been justifiably afraid of Russell, and a much larger number of people who should've been. All of them deserved it.

One of the pluses to being truly omniscient, you can actually get it right, with surprisingly little leg work. David hummed to himself as he tapped away on his laptop. No more field jobs for him, just a cushy retirement, he thought, as he transferred an extra couple of billion into an offshore account he'd just set up to supplement his M-I 6 pension . He could not undo what he had done in the past, but _even a cold blooded murderer is not beyond redemption, beyond hope._ That is what she kept telling him, at any rate. He hoped she was right.

Marie and David stood on a beach somewhere in South America, holding hands, watching the waves roll in. The onshore wind plastered Marie's thin white gown to her softly swelling belly. Tyranny would return, it always did. But, for now, the cake was not a lie.

As David shifted his grip, a slight creaking noise drew Marie's attention. "Do you think you'll ever feel comfortable taking those off?" she inquire timidly, indicating his hands. "Its a bit warm for them here..."


End file.
